Easy-to-use phone from Motorola?

Motorola announced a new cell phone, the E895, to be available in the last quarter of this year. It uses a combination of Java and Linux called JUIX, which Motorola claims is easier to use than other smartphone OSes. But Motorola doesn’t have a good history of easy-to-use phones — one of my friends said …

No bookstores in Cupertino???

When I moved to Cupertino in 1989, it had several general bookstores: A Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books in the Oaks, a B. Dalton in Cupertino Crossroads, a Waldenbooks in Vallco Mall, and a Crown Books in the Marketplace (across from Vallco). Stacey’s later opened a branch near Vallco. For the geeks, there was Computer …

Web development: Ruby on Rails and Django

A constant theme in HCI and computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) is how hard it is to get a group of people to adopt and support new technology — being technically superior is not nearly enough. One good example, interestingly enough, is in the area of web application frameworks. For example, in my favorite language Python, …

Salvadorean food and Willow Glen ice cream

Two nights ago, my buddy Jonathan and I met up for dinner. We were in an adventurous mood, so we went to Vicky’s Restaurant [map | Mercury News review], which specializes in cuisine from El Salvador, in the Burbank neighborhood of San Jose. Jon couldn’t resist the 2 Tacos for $2 deal, but we also …